This is the highest award given by ISAC for outstanding contributions in the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy. It is generously sponsored by the Microbial Chemistry Research Foundation of Japan.

Professor Umezawa had a brilliant career and made many key discoveries in the fields of antibiotics, anticancer drugs and immunomodulators over many years. The discoveries of kanamycin (1957), josamycin (1967) and bleomycin (1965) were perhaps his most outstanding successes.

The first of his 12 antibiotic discoveries dates from 1949, the first of his 18 anticancer drugs from 1953 and the first of his enzymes inhibitors from 1969. Professor Umezawa received many accolades and honorary doctorates, and was even honoured by the Vatican. He was a great supporter of the ISC and a kind host to many foreign visitors to the Microbial Chemistry Research Foundation, of which he was the director.

2022 AWARDEE

Since the beginning of her tenure at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Patel has focused her research on bacterial infections. Her work focuses on three major areas:

1. improvement of next-generation diagnostic techniques
2. understanding the inherent biology of periprosthetic infection
3. understanding antibiotic resistance through a clinical lens

Dr. Patel received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Princeton University, where she graduated magna cum laude. From there, she obtained a medical degree from McGill University. Afterwards, Dr. Patel completed Internal Medicine Residency and Fellowships in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the Mayo Clinic. Since then, she has been involved in setting standards for diagnostic and clinical care of bacterial infections, as evidenced by the (select) positions she has held or holds within the American Society for Microbiology (President), American Board of Pathology (Microbiology Test Writing Committee Member), Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (Subcommittee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Voting Member), National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Council Member), National Board of Medical Examiners (Microbiology/Immunology Test Material Development Committee Chair), Journal of Clinical Microbiology (Associate Editor), and Clinical Infectious Diseases (Associate Editor).

In addition, Dr. Patel’s continued commitment to mentorship can be translated into a long list of trainees from around the world; she had dedicated hours of teaching to train the next generation of scientists and MDs.

Dr. Patel will present the HUMA plenary lecture on Microbial Theranostics – A Resistance Combatting Strategy on Monday, November 28, 2022 at 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM.